I am not alone

Hope is the dream of a soul awake. ~ French proverb


I am not alone. Christ surrounds me every minute with His love and grace. I am forever grateful for His mercy during these times of struggle and change.

I am learning to live again. Being alone for long periods of time have shown me that I have only been half alive for years. Why?

Sickness, a disintegrating marriage, a slew of changes and losses during the past five years....first, the loss of myself as I became entangled with the illogical illness of anorexia. Then frantic attempts to become what I felt David wanted as I slowly recovered and grew stronger both in body and mind, and yet he drew further and further away. Leaving my career as a journalist to attend graduate school, and the subsequent adjustments to academia and trying to fit in to that world.

I am learning to trust that my intelligence and strength will see me through wherever God takes me. I never thought my marriage would end, but it has and I accept that and continue to move forward. I have hope for the future, and its infinite possibilities. I know I will never be alone no matter what happens, and to finally feel Christ's presence so fully is a joy that is indescribable.

Not that it has been easy. I have cried many times during the past three months, and prayed for God to lift the depression and anxiety as I contemplate unraveling fifteen years of dreams and hopes. As I look around my house and the tangle of possessions — David's paintings, my books; a life built that now must be torn down — I sometimes feel overwhelmed. I want to just give everything away, pack my clothes, and go somewhere were I am not known as David's wife or a former reporter or a recovering anorexic or all the other roles I have filled that I now must leave behind...A place where I can be free.

I am not alone. Christ is with me throughout all this. He is with me when I wake up in the middle of the night, still confused about all that has happened in the past year. He is with me each time I must tell one more person about the break-up of my marriage, that David is never coming back to Michigan and he has left it to me to tell all of our friends. He is with me when I still sometimes ask myself if I am a failure, if something is wrong with me and if I am an awful person who drove away her husband because she was so stupid to develop anorexia in her forties. I don't always believe these things of myself; they are just unbidden thoughts.

Christ was with me when I decided on December 28, 2010 that I would overcome anorexia and live a full life, one filled with joy and happiness. He was with me when I kept eating and gaining weight, and when I struggled with that and had to tell myself that health and freedom were worth the pain of recovery. I have told myself I will not settle for anything less than full freedom from anorexia. I become more free every day, and anorexia is beginning to seem like a distant memory.

I am not alone.

It is time to move on...

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." Anais Nin


It is time for me to move forward in life. In each one of our lives reality shifts and changes. Nothing remains static. I can face the future with hope and courage, or I can face it with fear. I choose the first, and to accept that the dreams and hopes that I might have held at one time are no more.


For I do not want my life to shrink, become nothing more than waiting and dreaming for what will not happen. It has been three months — to the day — that David left, and there will be no reconciliation. Nothing can change that.


So I can choose to cry and rail against God or fate or whatever you want to call it. Or I can choose to move forward. The life I lead really depends upon me. I am now healthy and I am free. I feel strong in my recovery from anorexia, and thus those fears are not there anymore. I am proud of myself and I am fine with my body. I rarely think about being thinner or restricting or all the other things that came with the illness.


I am not saying things are perfect. Once in a while, I will get glimpse into the mirror or pull out the scale and weigh myself and I will feel an old, familiar twinge from days past. I just push it aside and think about what I stand to lose.


Life.


This might not be the life that I originally dreamed of when I started focusing on gaining weight and health three months ago. But as I wrote, realities change and you either accept it and move on or become bitter and stuck forever.


I think about the possibilities. I could move to Ireland after I finish graduate school. Or move south, away from Michigan's cold winters. I could do just about anything. I have far more blessings than many people. I am intelligent and educated. I have a variety of experiences in different fields. I have been told — although I still struggle to believe this about myself — that I am strong and courageous and beautiful.


Beautiful. There is such power in that word. Of course I like it when people say I am beautiful. Who doesn't? But I want to tell them to dig a little deeper, that perhaps real beauty can be found within people, including me. For I never again want to be trapped by anorexia, and part of me is afraid that one simple word is part of the trap.


You would be beautiful if only you were thinner...

This is one of the many thoughts I had before I became healthier. What nonsense! I can look at the pictures and see that at my thinnest, I was far from beautiful. I was emaciated and looked old and drained.


I would rather be thought of as strong and courageous and kind. These are the traits that open my world and allow others to be in it.


I am ready...It is scary because so much of the future is unknown. But in the end, isn't that really true of all of us? Can any one of us really say with complete certainty that this person or that job will be in our life tomorrow? Christ has taught me to not trust the things of this earth, for surely they will rust and decay and finally, disappear.


Make no mistake. I still believe in love and romance and the possibilities that exist. I am not bitter nor do I have a hatred of all men because of what David did. I am sometimes still angry and feel abandoned by him. But I am slowly moving through the stages of grief, and I am finally beginning to accept what has happened.


I am becoming myself, and I don't plan to lose that ever again.


And now, I step forward into the unknown...


"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Phillippians 4:13

Bargaining with recovery

I have to decide whether I want recovery or death from anorexia. As I wrote earlier, I have been bargaining with recovery. I want to be healthy and live a full life, one filled with love and learning and joy and laughter, and one without fear.

But I also want to be thin; to be the thinnest one around, the one who is pointed to and whispered about, the one people wonder, "How did she get so thin?" I asked my husband the other day if I looked "anorexic" and he answered (honestly) that I do. I was secretly pleased. I also was angry. For me, it's about being thin and then again, it's not about being thin. Being thin is the outward manifestation of my inner pain.

It's like the morning ritual of the scale — the number is never right. If it's lower than the day before, I'm pleased for just a moment (then - what about tomorrow? why isn't it lower by two pounds? three pounds? am I not a good enough anorexic? anybody else would have lost more, damn it!). If the number is higher, the war within starts (should I be glad? upset? I know I need to gain weight. But what if ... what if I ate too much, the wrong thing? what am I supposed to feel?) And if the number is static, I just shake my head, thinking the number will be better tomorrow.

There are moments that should have shocked me into recovery. Times at the store when I start to see black, the ground rising up to meet me, my knees shaking as I sink to the ground, sitting and pretending that I am fascinated by what is on the floor. Days when I have read a page three, four times; finally realizing I didn't understand one word because my brain didn't have the fuel it needed to process the words on the page. I ask myself — since when did it start taking me two hours to read fifty pages? Moments recently when I couldn't pull myself out of bed before noon, all because I remember, hey, I'm still anorexic today and that changes everything.

Then there was Saturday. I had my usual breakfast of yogurt; my heart broken by recent events and unable to eat more. I went to take my morning shower; the hot water always feels like a refuge from my world as long as I don't look at my body closely. Looking is a no-win situation since my relapse. Sometimes my eyes are open like Eve's, and I see the protruding hip bones and prominent clavicle; other times, I see the huge thighs and enormous stomach.

Muscles weakened, dizziness hit me, heart raced. I sank to the ground, shampoo still in my hair. A rare thought — I need more food — crossed my mind, and my husband fed me pieces of a cereal bar as I sat in the bathtub with the water running over me.

Not enough. I stood up, rinsed the shampoo out and quickly rubbed in the conditioner. I continued to feel weak and again sank to the bathtub floor. As I rubbed soap over my body, I reflected that I had to take a shower sitting down at the age of forty-four. Shaking all over, I tried my best to finish my shower as the hot water began to fade and I began to grow cold. The simple joy of the shower was gone, and my hair was damp with conditioner I didn't have the energy to rinse out.

I crawled out of the shower, wrapped a towel around my head and sank to the floor. And for the next hour, I couldn't move without my husband holding my arm. I felt old, older than the oldest person. I felt ashamed. And I felt scared.

I can't continue to bargain with recovery. As I wrote after a recent post, "Recovery isn't failure," on ED Bites, I am becoming more and more tired of anorexia being part of my life. I will fail either way. I can fail at recovery and win at anorexia. I could become the thinnest, but I will lose my soul and my life in the end.

Or I can fail at anorexia and win at recovery. The possibilities both frighten and thrill me. The thought of finally being free of Ana, to be able to eat and breathe and live without fear ... My mind swirls with thoughts of two very different futures ahead of me.

I step forward.

It will take more courage to embrace recovery than anything else I have done in my life. But ... no matter how many times I panic, no matter how many times I rage that recovery is a lie (at least for me), that a return to normal life is an impossible dream painted by my doctor ... no matter what I tell myself, I still believe in dreams.

I step forward ...

(A poem)

"Labyrinth

 Or the twisted path of Anorexia"

I wake up
Lost
Remembering who I was
Knowing who I am


I throw the label
Anorexia
At myself like a dirty bomb
A well-aimed hit


The fallout destroys
Reader, writer, wife
Lover, sister, friend


Human being
No more


I trace the steps
The path through this
Labyrinth
Anorexia


Turning in circles
Dazed, confused
Wasted body
Revealed


Not human


Recovery
Recovery
Recovery
Recovery
Rec........


Meaning lost
Not by familiarity
But by contempt


I want to take
My wasted body
Apologize for 
Its pain


Outer pain
Shown through
Translucence
Fine lines
Dead eyes


Stroke the fine
Blue veins
Protect the
Fragility I have
Both desired


And hated


Soothe the inner
Hunger
Remembering food
Offered
Denied
Thrown away


To say
'I'm sorry'
I know others
Hurt you


And then
I did too.